Crowd Realty, Inc. (Headquarters: Minato-ku, Tokyo. CEO: Takeshi Kito.), a company which aims to launch an equity crowdfunding service, raised funds by issuance of new shares through third-party allotment in which the allottee is “FinTech Fund (Official name: FinTech Business Innovation Investment Limited Partnership)”, which the SBI Investment Inc. (Headquarters: Minato-ku, Tokyo. President and CEO: Katsuya Kawashima.), a wholly-owned subsidiary of SBI Holdings (Headquarters: Minato-ku, Tokyo. President and CEO: Yoshitaka Kitao.). In addition, Crowd Realty, Inc. announced today the beta launch of “Crowd Realty” (invitation only).

Crowd Realty is an equity crowdfunding marketplace for real estate with hybrid mechanisms of crowdfunding and Public REIT. Our marketplace will provide customers with opportunities to invest small amounts of money in and raise funds for small-scale projects for which only few options of financing are available so far and renovation/development projects by conducting valuation based on projected cashflows and up-to-date market pricing.

The newly raised funds will be used for building an operating system of “Crowd Realty”, which is targeted to launch officially in January 2017. In addition, we will proactively engage with financial institutions focused on regional revitalization businesses in Japan in order to help business operators, who are involved with utilization of real estate and urban development, to raise funds and operate their business efficiently.

Through “Crowd Realty”, we will activate circulation of funds in real estate related projects, for which fundraising was not easy, commit to regional revitalization and value creation in real estate, and further create a brand new capital market.

Cross-border small-scale investments in European real estate via “Crowd Realty” Beta testers of “Crowd Realty” have opportunities to invest in offshore real estate deals sourced by EstateGuru, a real estate broker and P2P lending platform based in Estonia, who covers various European countries around Estonia. In partnership with EstateGuru, we will also offer investment opportunities for institutional investors in the future.